ROME  The Italian government plans to send most of the country's nuclear waste abroad for treatment and storage, an official was quoted as saying.

Giancarlo Bolognini, an executive with Sogin, the state-run company that handles Italy's nuclear waste, was quoted Saturday by the ANSA news agency as saying that officials have signed a decree to send the waste abroad.

News reports said it could be sent either to France or to Britain. Bolognini was quoted as saying the waste would be returned to Italy in about 20 years, once Italy prepares a site for it.

Italy banned nuclear reactors for energy in the 1980s, but the issue of what to do with nuclear waste has remained controversial.

Last year, the government backed off on a plan to put a nuclear dump in a small southern town in the Basilicata region, giving in to weeks of protest marches and highway blockades by citizens.